There is not much difference between what she and I have said.

You have not asked anything-----

Through the Chair, the Deputy has not asked anything specific. Other than identifying the problem, she has not come up with a specific solution.

Whatever does that mean?

Come off it.

The only effective intervention is the industrial relations machinery. That is key.

In any assessment of our education system, particularly our primary school system, it is shown to be one of the best in Europe. This is repeatedly the case with PISA outcomes and results for literacy and numeracy. Our system is very high up there in terms of outcomes. That needs to be said because the Deputy’s narrative was one of unrelenting misery and almost of a system that was not effective at all. The system has grown enormously. The number of teachers has grown enormously. It is up dramatically. This Governme…

We will focus on capitation and assess the capitation issue, which is the basic income that goes into schools to manage and maintain them on an ongoing basis. We will continue to invest in teachers across the full spectrum of issues that affect teachers. We will invest in training, particularly around additional special needs. On special education more generally, through the National Council for Special Education, there will be an increased number of SENOs, for example. There is also a change with a more proactive …

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. Is ceist an-tábhachtach í. Over the past 20 years, there has been significant professionalisation of the entire area of medical technicians and the entire ambulance service. Much of that was informed by international best practice, such as in the development of the standards of training for emergency medical technicians, which replaced a different kind of approach prior to that. First and foremost, getting a qualified EMT to a scene is the best chance for a person to survi…

The report should be published. I will speak to the Minister for Health about the up-to-date position. I understand the report received significant media attention in one publication. If a report is commissioned by a service, it should be published openly by the HSE. As I said, the HSE's national service plan had various key performance indicators regarding purple calls, which are cardiac life-threatening, and red calls, which are other life-threatening calls, to be responded to within 18 minutes and 59 seconds. Th…

The Deputy acknowledged that the Department has intervened in terms of the cost of secretarial services, wages, salaries and so on, which was a long running issue in primary education. Looking at the broader picture, budget 2024 provided targeted funding for school communities with an increase in capitation-related funding of over €81 million. As part of the capitation package in the budget for 2024, the Minister secured €21 million as a permanent increase in capitation funding to assist schools now and in the long…

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. School caretakers are essential and they play a vital role in the life of any school, as do the school secretaries. Whenever I go into a school, I always describe the school secretaries as the engine room of the school because they make things tick for the principal and everybody else. That is generally the situation. Caretakers also have a particular role to play in terms of the spirit and environment within a school. I have seen that in many schools to great effect. The i…

A diagnosis of cancer is a very difficult one for a person and for that person's family to receive. Every effort should be made to make the journey of care as stress-free as possible. The Government has significantly reduced healthcare costs in terms of hospital inpatient charges, extending GP card coverage and things like that. In terms of car parking charges, that is something we will engage with the HSE on. We have, though, progressively reduced medical costs, including the DPS and so on, significantly over the …

Well over 1,000 people seeking asylum have been accommodated since the Government's strategy was announced and published some weeks ago. The Deputy must also acknowledge the unprecedented increase in the number of people seeking asylum in this country in the last three to four years. We have moved from having about 3,500 people per annum seeking asylum in 2019 to a situation this year where there could be anything between 20,000 and 25,000 people who will come into the country seeking asylum. This is separate altog…

Absolutely not. The price of houses is a problem for those seeking to buy or rent houses at affordable prices. There is an issue, and we want prices to come down and to moderate. It is all about supply, though, and I respectfully suggest that the proposals put forward by the Deputy's party would dampen it. We need more supply. This Government has already, in the context of its policies, enabled 110,000 new homes to be completed since Covid-19. The commencements story this year is quite dramatic. More than 32,000 un…

We want to increase this trend and through the help-to-buy scheme and other supports, we will continue to help people to buy houses at affordable rates.

I am not familiar with the background to the case and so forth but I will certainly talk to the Minister for Education in relation to the issue the Deputy has raised. There are established industrial relations and conciliation frameworks to try to resolve these issues or progress various schemes. I will, however, certainly discuss this issue with the Minister for Education.

I imagine there are quite a number of complications in expanding such a scheme. I will talk to the Minister for Transport and seek to get the outcome of the evaluation of the pilot scheme, because I presume there was an evaluation. I will talk to the Minister in respect of it.

Okay, but it has implications for the Department of Transport too.

Oh, it has.